


Beloved

by Lady_Quill



Category: Maleficent (2014), Sleeping Beauty (Fairy Tale)
Genre: F/F, Fairy Tale Retellings, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 05:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1845265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Quill/pseuds/Lady_Quill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A retelling of the fairy tale, combining elements of Maleficent and Sleeping Beauty, in which Princess Leila (and not Stephan) finds Maleficent in the woods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beloved

**Author's Note:**

> This is still a work in progress - right now I've got the basic structure of the story I'd like to tell about these two characters, but I feel like it could still be fleshed out quite a bit. Please feel free to make comments, ask questions, or give suggestions! I've been reading some of Hans Andersen's fairy tales, so the style of writing is meant to evoke the idea of sitting down for story-time.

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Leila. She was a princess, only she didn’t like it very much, for she had to be very lady-like all the time when all she really wanted to do was go out and play. She liked her history lessons well enough, to hear of the monarchs and wars from many years ago, but scorned her other subjects. One day, Leila decided she’d had enough of being a princess, and made up her mind to run away. So, after everyone thought she was in bed, she gave her maid the slip and snuck out of the castle wrapped in a cloak made out of a bed sheet. Once she made it outside the village gates, she headed towards the Dark Forest. She had never understood why it was forbidden – after all, it was only a forest, and because of the thick trees it was often dark. She was getting tired, but thought perhaps the soldiers would come looking for her, and come dawn, she were best inside the forest rather than on its edges, where she might be easily found. So Leila walked and walked, until her feet would carry her no farther, and she found a mossy bank to sleep on, wrapped herself up in her bed-sheet cape, and fell asleep.

When she awoke, there was a strange little girl standing over her. Or at least she thought it was a girl, because she had two horns on the top of her head. “I’m Leila. What’s your name?” she asked, for Leila very much liked meeting new people. The girl introduced herself as Maleficent. “I’m running away,” Leila said. “It’s just for the week. You see, I’m cooped up in the house but I wanted to see the world and go on an adventure. But not too long, for people will miss me back home… just enough to have some fun.” Maleficent explained that she was from the woods, and would show Leila all of the things that constituted a proper adventure.

Soon enough it was the end of the week, and Leila was very sad, for she didn’t want to leave her new friend. “Won’t you come back with me?” But Maleficent said no, she didn’t think she would be very welcome there, and pointed to her horns by way of explanation. Leila promised to visit if there was a way, and Maleficent promised the same, though she found such a scenario unlikely. So Leila went back, and as she suspected, everybody was very worried about her, and kept a much closer guard on her. She tried telling people about the magnificent little girl with the horns she made friends with, but nobody believed her, and thought she was only trying to get more attention by making up stories. Seasons came and went, and still there was no sign of Maleficent, nor any way for Leila to escape again. She began talking to the knights of the palace, to hear their stories about fantastical mythical creatures, of fairylands and of a knight with a lion devoted as any squire.

Another year passed, and as it was her sixteenth birthday, Leila was to have a grand party. Leila generally hated parties, for she would yearn to be outside in the woods instead of stuck in a tight dress and forced to pace languidly in formal dance. Such was this occasion, but then, out of the corner of her eye, Leila caught Maleficent lurking in an alcove off the main ballroom, a two-pronged hat covering her horns. Maleficent was afraid of being found out and turned away, not being of royalty, but Leila remembered from her history books a noble family from far away, long forgotten, and nobody questioned her presence at the ball. Maleficent shooed Leila back to the dances, lest she be missed, but afterwards they ran to the garden and laughed together as if no time at all had passed. Eventually Maleficent had to leave, and Leila was called away for bed, but they promised to see each other at the next ball. Leila soon looked forward to the grand parties, not for the events themselves, but for the quiet time with Maleficent afterwards.

At eighteen Leila was old enough to be sent as an ambassador to other kingdoms, and act as a royal representative. On her travels she would promise to bring such-and-such information back home, or remind so-and-so of a promise, when really she had no authority negotiating trade agreements and water rights. But she argued that for such long trips, it would really be helpful to have along a lady-in-waiting she could trust, and arranged for Maleficent to take on the role. Because the trips were official, she would never look out of place wearing a formal hat, and Leila took great pleasure in picking out new designs for her friend. They would sleep in the same bed on these trips, and Leila found her feelings of attachment grow into something a bit like romance. Holding hands turned into kisses, and caresses into promises never to leave each other for a silly thing like a prince.

But Leila could not ignore her responsibility. She was expected to marry for the sake of the kingdom, and was not the selfish little girl who ran away from home. The prince of their neighboring kingdom was named Stephan, and he was nice enough (though a little tall) and Leila felt that at the very least they could live amicably. By letter she accepted Stephan’s proposal, and broke the news to Maleficent as best she could. They fought bitterly, with words exchanged that both sides regretted even in the moment they were spoken. But it was no use; Leila was to marry Prince Stephan, and then she would become queen. Maleficent ran, but not back home, for there was no one waiting for her. She had wasted her time for the company of a spoilt princess, who now declared that Maleficent’s attachment was a childish fancy she could no longer afford. There was an old castle, on the Forbidden Mountain, and it was said an old wizard once inhabited its towers. She found no wizard, but an old raven, who had taken up residence in the derelict structure. Its name was Diaval, but she called him Diablo, the devil, for he was a trickster and the nickname (when used) was deserved. The raven became her link to the outside kingdoms, and would deliver the news to her. She learned the day Leila was to be married, and decided to attend the wedding, though her heart would surely break.

Maleficent had not planned on revealing herself at the ceremony. She was in the back, her horns covered by her usual hat, and a veil thrown hastily over her face. Leila did not look happy, nor did she look unhappy, and Maleficent could intrude no longer; perhaps the princess had never been in love with her to begin with, perhaps she was still. It did not matter. But as she stood, the veil caught on the woodwork of the bench, and the hat was torn clean off. Everyone around her gasped to see such a creature at the wedding of their princess, and Maleficent was sure that Leila would explain, for she had come in grief and not in anger. Yet the girl stayed silent while the Prince Stephan called her a monster, and spoke only to say, “Remove her from the chapel.” Maleficent was hurt beyond repair at the betrayal of her friend, and she swore to herself that someday she would have revenge.

Now that she no longer spent her time traveling between kingdoms, Maleficent decided to explore her new castle, which beforehand she had barely done. Now, though, she looked through all the rooms and floors, mapping out secret passageways and hidden alcoves. At last she found something different – the old wizard’s chamber. She spent her time training herself in magic, finding herself quite adept at it, using the notes and spells the wizard had left behind.

Time passed, and the raven told Maleficent of the party being thrown for the now-Queen Leila’s first child. What a silly thing to do, she thought, throwing a grand celebration for a ghastly little creature. Maleficent entered the court just as the third fairy, visiting from the other-realm, was about to present the child with its third gift. The queen had the gall to look at her, and ask if she was offended at not being invited. No, not offended at not being wanted – that’s what the fairy said, and nobody had disagreed. She was not offended in the slightest, and gave her gift to the princess – that on the sunset of her 16th birthday, she would prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, and die. 

Maleficent went back to her castle, and watched as the rest of the court became increasingly paranoid. They burned all the spinning wheels within one hundred meters of the castle, as if that would save the princess from her reach, as if they could change the fate of the curse. Her raven would bring her news every day of the kingdom and Leila, but on the third day following the curse the princess was gone. She wanted to give Leila the knowledge that something she cared for would be taken away from her, but Maleficent supposed the curse still had its desired effect.

She did not concern herself with finding the princess, until the raven brought word of the fairies with a fifteen year old girl living in the Dark Forest. She waited in their empty house, but it was Prince Phillip who came. The fairies brought the girl back to the castle, but Maleficent finds her there. She found Leila, too, sitting by the fire with one of her history books. Maleficent could not stay to watch. She returned back to her castle and taunted the prince with a story of true love, and saving his princess in a hundred years’ time, and laughs at his resolve.

It took her too long to realize the fairies had infiltrated her castle and freed the prince. She called to her raven, and saw it had been turned to stone. Her anger grew, for the fairies had no right to destroy something that had done no ill to the world, or to them. She conjured her magic and caused the stones of the castle to tumble down after the prince, but the fairies turned them to bubbles. Maleficent released hundreds of arrows from the towers, but the fairies turned them to flowers, and the prince passed harmless. The prince reached the moat, and she ordered the water to rise up, boiling, but the fairies created a rainbow as a shield. The prince and his horse leaped over the bridge, and he was on his way to the castle.

Maleficent created a fire from her rage and bitterness, and from her cloak and the fire created a dragon. She looked into its eyes, burning with pure hatred, and commanded it to go after the prince. The battle was long, and the prince fought valiantly, but at last it seemed that he would be defeated. The three meddlesome fairies saw his imminent defeat and created the sword of truth, which he flung into the dragon’s heart. And as the dragon fell, it screamed piteously, and all that was left of it was the sword and the black cloak. Maleficent had spent her anger, and she slipped away to her castle, for there was nothing more she could do. The forbidden mountain felt lonelier than before, for now she did not even have her raven for company. But she would not wallow in grief forever, and she used her powers to start rebuilding the castle.

The princess awoke, and there was a grand celebration for her arrival. But the Queen Leila was sad, for she had lived a life of regret, and at the party there would be no friend disguised as a noblewoman wearing a two-coned hat. She had always done what she thought right, and though she was not unhappy at first, for she had grown up and resigned herself to meeting expectations, she wished for a time when she was truly happy. So, in the evening, she packed a small bag, put on a dress she’d stolen from one of her staff, wrapped a bed-sheet cloak around her, and set off. She wept for what she’d left behind, a daughter, a husband, and a kingdom, but knew in her heart that it was not the right place for her. Leila came to the forbidden mountain at last, but instead of ruins, stood a grand structure, with towers and ironwork gates.

Maleficent was finishing the decorations in the grand hall when there was a knock at the front door. She looked out the window, and saw a woman wrapped in a bed-sheet, and cautiously opened the door. “Leila,” she said, almost not believing it was her. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m running away,” she said.

“And will you leave in a week’s time?” Maleficent suggested bitterly. Leila was dutifully ashamed, and shook her head.

“They will miss me, if I stay longer than a week, but I do not wish to return. I was cruel, the last you saw of me, and I do not expect forgiveness. I will continue on my journey, if you wish to see no more of me, but I had to at least talk to you first. I am sorry for how I hurt you.”

“I am sorry as well, for I let my anger and jealousy consume me, and since I did not understand why you hurt me, I did so in return. Will you come in?”

So Leila did, and they talked much, and though time had passed between them, they did not mind, and were able to sort things out between them. Maleficent asked if Leila would like to stay, and be queen of the forest, and Leila agreed, for that is what she had always wanted.


End file.
